Maybe Baby

by Elaine Fox

“Hey. You must be the new doc.”

  Delaney looked up to find a short woman with a dark mass of shoulder-length hair standing in the doorway. She leaned one hand on a mop, the other on the doorknob.

  “I’m Maggie Coleman. I clean up here at nights. That your baby in the office?”

  Delaney took a deep breath and rose, extending her hand. “Yes. I’m Dr. Poole. That’s my daughter, Emily. Was she still sleeping?”

  Maggie took Delaney’s hand in a strong grip, her brown eyes direct. “Oh yeah. She’s out. Cute little thing. What is she, four, five months?”

  Delaney’s mind spun with the implications of the question. Having so recently acquired a husband as defense against Jack’s sudden presence, she now needed to consider her daughter’s age. Emily was six months old. Should she lie to throw him off? And by how much?

  Delaney nodded. “About that.”

  “I’ve got a kid myself. Blake. But he’s seventeen now.”

  “Really?” Surprise tainted the word. Maggie couldn’t be much older than Delaney was herself. Maybe thirty-one or thirty-two, Delaney guessed.

  Maggie chuckled. “Yeah. I had him young. High school, you know. Things got out of hand pretty quick for me, I guess. But I gotta say, I’m still glad when it takes people by surprise. Some days I feel as old as the hills.”

  Delaney gave her a professional smile, the one she’d trained herself to use no matter what state of mind she happened to be in. “Well, you don’t look it. But right now I’ve—”

  “Hey, was that Jack Shepard I saw leaving here?” Maggie jerked her head, curls bouncing, toward the front door through which she must have seen Jack leave.

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to disclose who my patients are.”

  Maggie laughed, a boisterous, uninhibited sound, and ambled into the room. “Boy, you are new in town, aren’t you?” The paper cover crunched as she rested one hip against the examining table. “Your patients are everyone in town, just about, so it’s not like you’ll be letting any big cat out of the bag. I was just wondering because I heard his girlfriend gave him a black eye at the Hornet’s Nest this afternoon. Guess it musta been more than that if he was here, huh?” She laughed again. “Serves him right, the lout.”

  Delaney schooled her face to a bland expression, though sweat broke out on her palms. “He’s a lout?”

  Maggie snickered. “Yeah, he’s a lout all right.” But her mouth curved and her eyes held what could be called an affectionate glint. “It’s probably safe to say he’s dumped nearly every woman in town, one time or another. ’Cept the ones too old for him. Doesn’t seem to have any trouble going the other direction, though, if you know what I mean. That girl who hit him today isn’t but nineteen. And him a ripe old thirty-four.”

  Delaney swallowed over a lump of mortification. The guy was a playboy, great. “Sounds like you know him pretty well.”

  “Sure. Everyone does. We follow the adventures of Jack Shepard like it’s a friggin’ soap opera. But I do know him a little better than most. We’ve known each other since high school, after all.”

  Delaney affected a casual tone. “And he’s been, ah, a ladies’ man since then?”

  Maggie shrugged. “Oh sure. It’s easy in high school. And now…well, you know, he’s a good-looking guy. Big fish, small pond. He gets his pick. Plus he coaches Harp Cove High’s football team, and if there’s one thing you should know about this town, it’s that it’s football crazy. Coach Shepard’s gotten them to the state finals every year he’s been coaching, so in this town that makes him a celebrity, believe me.”

  “He’s a football coach?” Delaney frowned. “I thought he was a teacher.”

  “Sure, that too. He teaches something, I don’t know. Phys Ed, I think.”

  Delaney scoffed, the sound out of her mouth before she could stop it.

  Maggie gave her a curious look. “Sure, it’s not much to someone like you. But here it’s a big deal. Lot a these kids wouldn’t never get outta this town but for football scholarships.”

  “Maybe they’d get academic scholarships if they devoted that time to their studies,” Delaney said, wondering what sort of father a football coach could possibly make. A womanizing football coach. Who taught gym. Not even English, or math, or history. He taught—trampoline and—and rope climbing.

  Visions of her high-school gym class flickered through her mind. Awful afternoons in a sweat-scented gym, running around in blue-and-white shorts sets at the command of a large, angry woman.

  Jesus, what had she been thinking? The very idea of Emily discovering she was the offspring of a two-bit playboy made her heart stutter with anxiety, not that Emily was about to understand any of it at the ripe old age of six months. Still, there was no way her child was going to grow up in a place—even for the three years it took Delaney to fulfill her NHSC obligation—where everyone knew she was the love child of the town rake. No, this secret had to be kept, at all costs.

  Besides, how great of a role model would she, Delaney, appear to be if her daughter found out that her mother had gotten knocked up by an ignorant, small-town Lothario with no aspirations?

  Maggie drifted toward the door. “I guess someone who goes into medicine’s got to be pretty into books and stuff, huh?”

  “I suppose.” Delaney dragged her attention back to the woman in front of her.

  Maggie smiled. “That’s good. Me, I watch too much TV. Somehow it always seems easier, you know? But books are good. I’m trying to get my Blake to read more.”

  Delaney nodded. “It’s important.”

  “I don’t know, though, all he ever wants to do is play sports or watch ’em. Personally, I think they’re as addicting as cigarettes. This country ought to be organizing a suit against the TV people. You know—”

  “Listen, it was very nice to meet you, Maggie. But I’ve got to go. Shall I leave this door open?” Delaney stood and moved toward Maggie and the door, suddenly unable to sit still a moment more. She had to get Emily and go home. She had things to do. She had a husband to invent.

  Maggie stepped back to let Delaney pass. “Yeah, I still gotta do this room. Good to meet you too, Dr. Poole.”

  Delaney walked quickly down the hall to her office. She didn’t like leaving Emily alone, even at such a short distance, but gleaning what she could from Maggie Coleman had seemed important. Because now she knew.

  Now she knew that Jack Shepard was an opportunist. A cheap—albeit good-looking—sexual opportunist. She was lucky she hadn’t ended up with some disease. Whatever remote—and they had been extremely remote—thoughts she might have harbored about that night on the beach being somehow special, she now knew they were false. That night was special only because it had brought her Emily. And now was the time to protect her.

  Delaney gathered up her purse and Emily’s diaper bag and slung them over her shoulder. Then she picked up Emily’s car seat and eased from the room.

  Emily’s petal pink cheeks were flushed in sleep, her dark lashes smoky against the pale baby skin. Standing outside her office, looking down on her daughter, Delaney felt such an overwhelming rush of love and protectiveness there was no question in her mind that what she was doing was right. She had to convince Jack Shepard and the world that Emily was her “husband’s” baby. She had to keep Emily to herself no matter what.

  Delaney jumped and glanced up as Maggie clattered from exam room one with a rolling bucket at the end of her mop.

  “See you tomorrow!” Maggie waved a rubber-gloved hand.

  Delaney gave a halfhearted wave. “Yes, see you tomorrow,” she murmured as Maggie rattled down the hall.

  Jack sat in his truck outside Sadie’s Diner the following morning and fingered the spot near his shoulder where Delaney had jabbed the needle. Had it been his imagination or had she been a little too zealous in popping him with that tetanus shot? Yep, there was a bruise, he could feel it. She had been upset upon discovering he was her landlord, that much was certain. She couldn’t have
looked more shocked, or displeased.

  Come to think of it that’s pretty much how she’d looked the moment she’d laid eyes on him. Shocked and displeased. Which was a long way from how he’d felt upon seeing her. He shook his head, trying to remember how they’d left things after that night on the beach.

  Not that he hadn’t done that before. No, he’d gone through it a thousand times in his head. Why didn’t I ask for her phone number? How in the world did I not get her last name? Why didn’t I find out exactly where she lived? Did she know anybody here—anybody I could ask about her? How did none of this come up in conversation?

  Yes, he’d kicked himself over and over for not being able to find her, because he sure hadn’t been able to forget her. That night had been incredible. After days of seeing her flitting about town like a ghost sent to haunt him, he’d finally gotten up the nerve to ask her to join him at the Hornet’s Nest. Granted, he’d suffered several mortifying hours of rejection after she’d told him she wouldn’t come, but then there she was. Beautiful, elegant, nymph-like. She was mesmerizing with her clear, intelligent eyes and subtle smile. God, the mere thought of how she’d looked at him as she’d asked him to get some air had his muscles tightening in all the right places.

  Or the wrong places. Because he’d wondered that, too. If they hadn’t had sex, would she have gotten back in touch with him? Was it the suddenness of it that made her disappear? The stigma of giving herself on a first—what was it?—not even a date? Because for him it had felt like much more than sex. Even before they’d gone to the beach it had felt to him like a connection. Like something he’d never felt before with any other woman. He’d looked into her eyes and he’d seen comprehension. A deep, soul-stirring recognition.

  At least that’s how it had seemed. And he’d understood her, too, he’d thought until yesterday. Yesterday, when she’d told him she was married and had been even at the time they’d been together.

  Disillusionment swept over him again. He supposed he could be angry that she hadn’t told him, hadn’t been honest, but that would be pointless. Besides, what he felt wasn’t anger, it was sadness, and that profound, confusing disappointment.

  None of it made sense to him, either, though he was willing to concede it could be because he didn’t want it to. Face it, Shep, he thought, you would have found something about her that bugged you if you’d had anything more than a few short—passionate—hours. Why would you think she was right for you when every woman you’ve ever known has been wrong? Thinking about her all this time’s been nothing but wanting what you couldn’t have.

  Still, he couldn’t give up the idea he had of her. For the first time in his life, he thought he’d met The Impossible Woman—the woman he wouldn’t eventually want to dump. Though he’d never spoken of it to anyone, his perpetual unhappiness with women was actually a great source of despair for him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to find Ms. Right, he just hadn’t been able to. And he’d started to believe she didn’t exist.

  Until last summer, that was.

  He could still see Delaney standing by the bar in that oversize white shirt, her eyes large and vulnerable in her lightly tanned face as she agreed to dance with him. She’d been free that night. Emotionally, spiritually—and yes, sexually. He inhaled sharply at the memory. God, making love with her had been like nothing he’d ever experienced. And it had ruined him for other women ever since.

  Yeah, right, he told himself. The fantasy had ruined him. And what he needed to do now was discover the reality. If only to save himself.

  Delaney sat at the counter in Sadie’s Diner and mechanically chewed a piece of toast. Barely aware of what she was putting in her mouth, she sat riveted to the conversation of four old men going on behind her.

  “Beaned him with some big piece a metal’s what I heard,” one of the old voices creaked.

  Actually it was a table of five old men, she could see in the mirrored wall behind the counter, since one had come in late and pulled a chair up to the corner. They were gleefully recounting the story of Jack’s injury the previous day at the Hornet’s Nest.

  “That little Lisa’s got a temper on her, always has,” another, raspier voice chimed in. “She may be cute, but she’s tough.”

  “No tougher’n Jack,” a third said. This was the one with the red hunting cap, complete with earflaps like Elmer Fudd’s, Delaney was fairly certain. She’d heard him speaking when she’d first come in and noticed him because he’d watched her with undisguised interest. “That there’s the new doc,” she’d heard him stage-whisper as she’d passed to sit at the counter.

  “Oh, Jack ain’t so tough,” the raspy voice said. “He’s just a sucker for a pretty face, but it never lasts. And disinterest always trumps interest.”

  “Disinterest—what? What the hell are you talking about, Sam?”

  “I mean,” raspy-voiced Sam continued, “that Jack only appears tough because he’s a love-’em-and-leave-’em kinda guy. Ayup. Nothing they can do if he doesn’t want ’em. But if he ever meets up with a woman he wants, then we’ll see who’s tough and who’s not.”

  Delaney forced another forkful of eggs between bloodless lips as the bells on the door chimed.

  “Now Myrtle, she’s got a recipe for clam chowder’ll make you think you’ve died and gone to heaven,” Elmer Fudd said.

  “I believe you’re right,” Sam chimed. “I had that last year at the VFD chowder fest.”

  Delaney swallowed, then nearly choked as she heard Jack’s voice.

  “Morning, Sam. Norman, Howard. How you boys doin’ today? Marvin. Joe.”

  She glanced once in the mirror, then quickly away when she saw Jack notice her. His footsteps behind her shifted, then approached.

  “And good morning to you, Dr. Poole,” he said, sliding onto the vinyl-covered stool beside her.

  Delaney swallowed hard and turned to face him. He wore a calm smile, but his eyes were wary, not nearly as open as they’d been yesterday when he’d first seen her. Then there’d been hope, even gladness, in his expression. At least she’d thought there’d been.

  Until she’d dropped the husband bomb on him. Which reminded her, she had to remember to tell Dr. Jacobson and Kim McQuade, the clinic administrator, about her newly minted marital status.

  “Good morning.” Delaney glanced at the fresh bandage on his forehead. The old men would have a field day with that after he left, she was sure. “How are you feeling today? Any headache?”

  “Now, Doc, I’m not going to make you work over breakfast. How are you doing on this fine day?”

  Delaney flushed, aware that the table full of old men was silent now, no doubt listening intently to their conversation.

  “I’m just fine, thank you.”

  “Hey, Melinda,” he greeted the girl behind the counter. “Just coffee, please.” He turned back to Delaney. “I’ve got some good news for you.”

  She swallowed the last of her tepid coffee and motioned for the check. Good news, she thought, what could that be? He’s moving? He’s accepted a position in Kuala Lumpur lasting at least three years? He’s sterile and Emily was a conception all my own?

  “What’s that?” She plucked the napkin off her lap and laid it next to her empty plate with an unsteady hand. Had she really eaten all that? she wondered, unable to remember a single bite. She must have just been shoveling it in as she listened to the old men talk.

  Jack rested an elbow on the counter and shot her a look from the corners of his eyes. “When’s your husband coming up?”

  Delaney’s stomach hit the floor, irrationally surprised to hear her lie coming back at her so quickly. She looked at her plate, then pushed it away from her. “Uh, I’m not sure, why?”

  “Well, the house’ll be ready for you to move in tomorrow. I imagine he’d been planning to get here in time to help move your stuff in, right?”

  “Oh? Tomorrow? That’s early…” Should she say something now about getting out of the lease? What could she say abo
ut her husband’s not arriving? He, he had a job, in D.C. They were living apart at the moment until he could find something here. Something impossible to find here…he was—a lawyer! Yes! A D.C. lawyer. What in God’s name would he do up here?

  “Couple of days early.” He shrugged and dumped a seemingly endless stream of sugar into his coffee, his large hand steady and sure. “I thought you’d probably want to get settled as quickly as possible, though, what with your daughter and all. So I moved a bunch of stuff out of the spare room last night and cleaned it up.”

  Delaney’s pulse thundered at the mention of Emily. “It’s not making much difference to her right now. She spends most of her time at Tiny Tot Daycare.”

  “Really? Tiny Tot?”

  He looked at her, and she felt her stomach quiver. Why? There was nothing in the look. Just directness. Just curiosity. Just that bronze-green color and those long deadly lashes that had made him look so languidly passionate that night on the beach…

  “Yes.”

  “My sister used to work there. Years ago, of course, when she was in high school. She didn’t like it much, though.”

  “Oh?” Monosyllabilism seemed to be the best Delaney could do, conversationally.

  “No, something about too many babies needing a lot more than they could give.” He shrugged, then seemed suddenly aware of what he’d said, and added quickly, “Not that they’re like that now, probably. I’m sure it’s great now.” He laughed, and she thought she saw a tinge of pink hit his cheekbones. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to worry or anything.”

  Delaney bit her lip. She was a bad mother, that’s what he thought. She knew the place was too crowded, but she’d had little choice. The other, more desirable day care was full, and she didn’t know any other mothers in town who might be taking on a baby or two in their homes. And having Jack point out a chink in her Good-Mother armor seemed especially dangerous.

  Delaney picked up her check, then slid her legs to the side in order to rise. “It was the best I could do. The other place has a waiting list, and I’ve got Emily on it.”